There are no two ways about it – Service Management in several organisations needs a necessary face-lift to move with the times and remain relevant.
Service Management is seen by many as an inhibitor, or a blocker, and not necessary in today’s Agile, cloud driven, continuous deployment world. Without effective Service Management however, the costs associated with delivering new products and services can’t be controlled, quality standards can’t be set and maintained, and your users/customers won’t receive consistent levels of service and products that meet their needs.
Service Management is still needed but it’s time to re-think how you go about it.
So, what needs to change?
– You need a strategy
Forget any bottom-up, reactive approaches to Service Management that you have taken before. For Service Management in an Agile/DevOps world to be effective, you need to develop a strategy that aligns Service Management with the goals, working practices and velocity of your cloud and development teams. This is a first key step in establishing an effective approach that all key parties can agree to and work within.
– New approach & emphasis
You can no longer get away with Service Management being about heavily documented procedures and processes. You need to be flexible. Out of necessity, you will need to move to `just enough` processes that don’t impact speed and velocity, establish multi-modal governance, and be prepared to embrace risk.
– Tool set integration is key
In a fast-moving, ever changing DevOps world, tool set integration and accurate information is key. Without this, you run the risk of making high profile mistakes very quickly. Most modern Service Management tool sets easily integrate with development tools, so that if an update is made in one tool set it will be mirrored in the other so that all key people have visibility of it.
– Change in culture
A shift needs to be made from a `command and control` approach to guarding the operational environment, to a flexible approach that enables new and enhanced products and services to be developed and introduced at the appropriate velocity. Again, the need for your Service Management strategy and day-to-day approaches to be aligned with your development and product teams cannot be underplayed.
– Take the first step
Don’t wait for your Cloud and DevOps teams to come to you. Be pro-active, come up with a strategy and plan that involves them, and away you go.
All the areas and recommendations above have come from recent client engagements and have met with success and positive outcomes. We hope you find them useful and that they will help you move forward and achieve your goals.
For further information around how we can help you achieve your Service Management goals, and embrace new ways of working to your advantage, please don’t hesitate to get in touch on +44 (0) 203 8211252 or email us at info@icore-ltd.com
